Entrepreneurial Universities and Women Entrepreneurship : A Cross-Cultural Study

Purpose – Through a cross-culture study, we seek understandings about how entrepreneurial universities can foster entrepreneurship in women by attending to psychological and environmental factors and personality traits that encourage women to form entrepreneurial intent. Design/methodology/approach – We test our proposed conceptual model on a cross-cultural sample comprising 350 students from Italy, a developed country, and from Albania, an emerging country. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to validate the proposed model and test the hypothesized relationships. Findings – In both Italy and Albania, entrepreneurial universities significantly impact entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions in women. The major differences relate to psychological factors that predict self-employment attitudes and intentions. Specifically, risk-taking propensity and locus of control are important antecedents of attitudes in both samples; need for independence is a significant predictor only in the Italian sample; need for achievement has significant influence only in the Albanian sample. Originality/value – To better understand and interpret the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship, we use the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate entrepreneurial universities located in Italy, a developed country, and Albania, an emerging country. Keywords: attitudes, education, entrepreneurship, intent, university, women